


Community: The Movie (One By One They All Just Fade Away)

by The_Red_Rabbit



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Gen, this is still a comedy and if you saw my post you know why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 19,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24833716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Red_Rabbit/pseuds/The_Red_Rabbit
Summary: It's been 5 years since Abed Nadir left for Hollywood to pursue a career in film. When he receives a call in the dead of night from Greendale, Colorado, it becomes his responsibility to deliver the news to the rest of his old study group. He embarks on an epic journey to track down Troy Barnes on his boat.Dean-dong, the Dean is dead.But is he?Jeff Winger isn't so sure. He enlists the help of his old "study buddy" Annie Edison to use her FBI skills to find out what really happened to Craig Pelton.When the study group returns to Greendale, they find that the school has been bought out by Hot Topic. Britta, who liked Hot Topic back "before it sold out", immediately channels her grief into protesting it. But when she meets a fellow anarchist who has vowed to take down the chain from the inside, she's forced to contend with the fact that shouting opinions isn't the same as creating meaningful change.Based on a dream I had that was so genuinely upsetting that my GF had to comfort me and help me make it funny. I posted the concept to Tumblr, and you guys requested that I write it. So, without further ado, my pitch for the Community movie.
Comments: 22
Kudos: 26





	1. Cold Open

**Author's Note:**

> I always write a jokey message to Michael Sheen in the notes, but that doesn't really apply here. So this is to Dan Harmon. I'm autistic and have stage experience. Please hire me to make this movie. That's all.
> 
> If you don't read all the narration in this chapter in Abed's voice, then I don't know how to help you.

The night was dark, but couldn't really be described as stormy. It was raining, yes, but not exactly a torrential downpour. The dark and stormy night is more of a horror staple anyway. This isn't horror. This is noir. This is intrigue. This is the beginning of a mystery.

Abed's production assistant, Molly, tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a cell phone. He nodded and held it up to his ear as he watched the set flood.

"Uh huh," he said. "Uh huh. Yeah. Got it. No, I'll take care of that, you call the others." He hung up and gave the phone back to Molly without looking at her. "Production's going to have to be delayed."

"Oh so that was the studio?" Molly asked, voice trembling slightly.

"No."

"Then why-"

He gestured to the set. "Who insisted on filming on location?"

"I-I can find you someone to blame-"

If he was surprised by the comment, he didn't really show it. "That won't be necessary, Molly, it was a rhetorical question. It was me. I insisted. Nobody takes the blame for my mistakes." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I should've listened when they said filming on an actual set would be easier. Rain. I didn't account for rain. It didn't occur to me. Now production will have to be delayed."

"For how long?"

He shrugged. "Call the studio. Tell them I have some important work to do. Then get me a plane ticket."

"Where to?"

"Greendale." 

There was a short pause.

"...Greendale where, sir? You kind of have to specify a state."

He blinked and turned to look at her properly. "Sorry, I was expecting a slow camera zoom on my face, maybe a flash of lightning before it cut away. Then I'd just be in Greendale without having to actually get on a plane or anything."

Her eyes reflected a mixture of polite puzzlement and anxiety. "I-I can try to have something arranged-" But her words were tinged with doubt.

Abed knew that this was Molly's first gig, and remembered what it felt like to be the new person on set. He watched as she avoided his gaze and clutched her clipboard to her chest with one hand while winding a strand of her dark hair around the fingers of the other. Her hair was put up in a style that could only be referred to as a messy bun that was rapidly unraveling, probably because she pulled on it when she got nervous. Which was all the time. Her glasses were slipping down her face and Abed knew she'd have to reach up to adjust them soon. 

The first time he'd met her, she hadn't done anything particularly remarkable. There hadn't been a movie moment where she'd accidentally bumped into him and spilled papers everywhere or accidentally badmouthed the boss before realizing who she was talking to. She'd simply come up and introduced herself as his assigned production assistant. He remembered thinking she was very professional, if a bit shy.

Of course, soon after that meeting, he'd overheard some cameramen talking about her. They'd said that she'd be prettier if she tried a little more. He didn't know what that meant. Tried how, exactly? He hadn't noticed her appearance that much on the initial meeting, so he made a point the next time he saw her to observe more closely. He determined that, based on data he'd collected from a lifetime of mass media, Molly was the girl from the beginning of the movie who takes her glasses off and was secretly pretty the whole time. Abed had never understood those movies. Most of the girls in them weren't exactly ugly, they'd just had on glasses. Glasses don't change your facial symmetry or have a diminishing, Kryptonite-like effect on confidence. Likewise, though he had no real reason to care about this, he didn't exactly think Molly was lacking in facial symmetry. And she seemed to try very hard at her job. He was satisfied with her performance, so gave no more thought to the question.

"I was just thinking out loud, Molly, don't worry about it," Abed said. She always took things so literally. "Greendale's in Colorado."

She transferred her clipboard to her other hand, pushing her glasses up with the side of her arm in the process. She pulled a phone out of her pocket - a different one from the phone she'd handed Abed moments earlier, because that one was his and this one was her work phone. You could tell the difference because Abed's had an Inspector Spacetime phone case and hers was drab and bare. She looked at it for a moment. "There's no airport in Greendale. We'll have to take a plane to Denver then a cab the rest of the way."

"We?"

She made direct eye contact with him for the first time. Not the first time that conversation or the first time that day, but the first time ever. He knew for sure, because he would've noticed. He wasn't big on eye contact either. "I go where you go," she said seriously. There was a moment that, in the parlance of the film world, could be called a "beat". She blinked. "I'm sorry, that sounded overly dramatic and declarative. I meant I'm your PA. I take your calls and schedule your meetings. It would be unwise to travel without me." She looked away again.

He considered this. "Good point. On second thought, don't schedule the trip to Greendale just yet. I have to make another trip first. I need to see an old friend."

She nodded and looked back at her phone. "Will this be straightforward with me getting us a ticket somewhere or am I to understand from your tone that this is like the time you said 'I need to find a video rental place' and I tried to Google one and you actually meant you wanted to go on an 'adventure'?"

He paused for effect. "The second one," he said. "See? That would be way cooler with a zoom effect and some ominous music. But we shouldn't overuse it or it'll be our gimmick, like JJ Abrams and lens flares."

...

Troy Barnes was in the last place anyone would look. He wasn't in his beach house in Malibu or the cottage in Oregon or the condo in Cancun. Abed and Molly searched for him high and low, but found no trace of him.

"Troy?" repeated a surfer. "Who's that?"

"This is his house," Abed said, indicating the mansion that lay before them. "How do you not know whose house you're in?"

"I don't know, dawg, I just crash here," the surfer said. "But I'll ask around for you." He shouted over his shoulder. "Hey? Hey has anyone heard of a Troy?"

"Troy Bolton?" asked a blonde millennial who was dancing some way away.

"Never mind," Abed said.

He walked away abruptly and Molly took this as her cue to follow him. "Who are those people?" she asked.

"I don't know," he replied.

It was like this at every place they tried. They found raging house parties, but Troy didn't seem to be at any of them. Most people hadn't even heard of him. Those who had hadn't seen him for a while.

They finally tried his boat, just as a last resort. They hammered on the door.

It opened.

"Abed." Troy's voice was filled with surprise and astonishment at seeing his old college buddy in the flesh. "What're you...Is it raining?"

Abed and Molly were soaking wet. Molly spoke first. "Actually, he fell into the bay. Then I had to jump in and rescue him-"

"Thank you, Molly," Abed said. He looked at Troy, waiting for him to say something first.

"Why don't you come in?" Troy said, stepping aside to hold the door open. "I'll get you some fresh clothes and you can dry off."

"Thank you, Mr Troy," said Molly, pushing past him without another word.

 _Mr Troy?_ mouthed Troy to Abed.

 _She does that,_ mouthed Abed. 

They smiled at each other and it was like old times again. They exchanged their customary handshake, and Troy gestured for Abed to follow him inside.

...

"We've been on the road for the better part of two days," Abed explained as they warmed themselves up in front of the TV that had a screensaver on it to make it look like a fireplace. "We looked for you everywhere. The clues were spread so thin that it seemed almost impossible. This is the first hot meal I've had in days."

"Abed, why would you do that?" Troy asked. "Why didn't you just _call_ me? Or reach out on Facebook? You didn't have to do all this detective work to find me."

"He knew that," said Molly. "I found you in two seconds on social media, but I'm under contract to drop everything for gimmicks."

"Okay, that's _genius_ ," Troy admitted.

"I don't think it's enforceable," Molly admitted. "My friend's a contract lawyer and says it's likely a joke part of the fine print since nobody ever reads that, but after meeting Mr Abed..." She glanced at him out of the side of her eye. "Well, at least I enjoy a gimmick. It makes work fun."

"This is all beside the point," Abed said. "Troy, you have to listen to me, this is very important."

"Coolest start of a sentence _ever,"_ Troy said. "Go on."

"You have to come back to Greendale with me immediately."

"Why? What happened?"

He paused for effect. "The Dean is dead."

There was a brief silence.

"You know," Troy said. "That would be way cooler with a camera zoom and some ominous music." Then he took in what Abed had said. "Wait WHAT?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cue title sequence*


	2. Act I, Scene I

The plane ride to Colorado was mostly quiet. Nobody quite knew what to say.

Except Molly.

Well, to say that Molly ever _knew_ what to say would be an exaggeration. She often had no idea. But she knew she should say something.

"You must be pretty rich, huh, Mr Troy?"

"Huh?" Troy was broken from his train of thought by this interruption to the silence. "Oh. Right. I guess? It's mostly not really my money. We had this friend who left me a lot of money in his will."

"You had another friend who died?" Molly asked. "That's sad."

"Yeah," Troy said. "But Pierce was pretty old so it was really only a matter of time." This was a casual statement, offhand.

There was a seat nearby that appeared vacant to the naked eye, but those of us trained in the art of seeing between the layers of reality would see in that seat a transparent old man surrounded by a crackling cloud of energy.

"I'm sitting right here, asshole," he snapped under his breath.

"You know," Abed said. "I was kinda waiting for him to say, 'I'm sitting right here, idiot.'"

Troy cracked a smile as a nostalgic chuckle made its way from within him. "Yeah, yeah me too."

"I'm sure he'd say something stronger," Abed said. "But I'm trying to keep this reunion for General Audiences."

Molly jotted this down on her clipboard. "No strong language, violence, nudity, or sex, got it."

"Abed?" Troy queried. "Does mentioning all those things mean we just accidentally raised our rating?"

Abed sat deep in thought for a moment. "Possibly. I don't know if it's enough, but I'll keep an eye on it."

"I can keep an eye on it for you, Mr Abed," said Molly. "I'm sure you're grieving."

"None of us really knew the Dean that well," said Abed. "He was just some guy who was always around."

"But he was always in our corner," Troy said. "He was one of us."

"He was," Abed acknowledged.

"You could've told me someone died," Molly said softly. "I notified the studio that you'd be away for personal reasons. I've just sent the email notifying them that you need a bereavement period, but I really could've taken care of it sooner."

"I needed to heighten the sense of drama," said Abed. "If you knew what was happening, it would take some of the mystery and adventure out of it."

"That makes sense," Molly said. And it did, to her.

They fell silent again.

The man who may or may not be there chose that moment to speak again.

"And another thing," he said. "Why is it that the new girl gets to sit with Troy and Ay-bed, but I have to sit over here by the lady with the crying baby?"

The baby began crying louder, almost like it knew it was being addressed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On hiatus briefly. Won't be posting next week. Back first week of August. Feel free to talk to me here or on Tumblr though. Just because I'm not posting doesn't mean I'm not around. I'm just working a lot lately so I need time to get it together.


	3. Act I, Scene II

Troy and Abed left the airplane with Molly not far behind. They scanned the room for their study group, expecting a warm welcome. All they found was Annie, which was enough.

She smiled at them and held up a sign that she then read off for them. "Troy and Abed on an airplane!"

"Yeah, evidently we have the money in the budget for new locations," Abed said.

"Where is everyone?" asked Troy.

Her smile faltered slightly. "They couldn't come." She rushed to complete the thought. "To meet you, I mean. They're all waiting for us back at Greendale. I volunteered to come get you."

She didn't say 'because I'm a good friend.' But it was implied.

"If we leave right away, we can read Greendale in approximately an hour," said Molly. "Give or take for traffic."

This was when Annie noticed Molly for the first time. "Oh," she said, surprised to see someone she hadn't met with her two friends. "Who's this?"

Molly didn't look up from her phone as she sent another email. "Molly Plotter," she said. "You're Annie Edison."

It wasn't a question, it was a flat statement. "That's right," Annie said. She was oddly flattered this. "Troy and Abed have mentioned me a lot?"

"Mostly on the way over," Molly said. "We don't typically discuss personal matters outside of special circumstances."

"What do you normally discuss?" asked Annie.

"Inspector Spacetime."

"Oh." Suspicion confirmed. Mostly flat tone, avoiding eye contact, no real care given to fashion... "So you're Abed's girlfriend?"

Molly finally looked up and narrowed her eyes at Annie. It was unclear if she was offended or merely confused.

"Molly's my Production Assistant," Abed said. "On the Inspector Spacetime movie. She's very professional and good at her job so I'd appreciate if you wouldn't imply anything about our working relationship."

"Right," Annie said. "Of course."

"Wait," Troy said, latching on to something else Abed had said. "You're working on the Inspector Spacetime movie? Why didn't you tell me?" 

It was clear that Troy was a bit upset about being left out of the loop on something this huge.

Abed tried to think of a way to move the conversation along. "Cut to: Study Room." There was a pause while they all looked at him. "Cut to: Study Room."

"What are you doing Abed?" asked Annie.

"He's trying to move us along to another scene because he doesn't feel comfortable in the scene he's in," said Molly. 

"We can't cut to the Study Room in real life, Abed," Troy said, annoyance simmering just below the surface. "We've got to actually do the work to get there."

"Can I just try it one more time?" Abed asked. "Cut to: Study Room." Another pause. "Alright, that didn't work, let's go."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry, guys, I thought there'd be more to this by now. I promise the rest of the study group will be in next week's chapter.
> 
> I've been having a hard time lately because I've had a wisdom tooth causing me extreme pain. It made it virtually impossible to do anything (I think it was infected at one point). Anyway, pain went away on its own, this is America, we're not getting it checked out. If we die, we die, right? I work retail, so that seems to be the consensus.
> 
> I've been feeling a bit self conscious about this fic lately anyway. I'm not generally a comedy writer. I love deconstructing stories and finding their essential elements and exploiting them for comedy, but the sheer amount of jokes per minute required to do Community justice is absolutely a little daunting. People who've followed me for a while know that I generally do existential scifi stuff with a real agenda. There's usually some dark humor sprinkled among all the hurt/comfort found family stuff I specialize in, but going in and trying to JUST do humor? Like trying to be funny on purpose? How do I do that? I can BARELY keep it together on stage when I try to be funny. I'm a dramatic Shakespearean actor, dammit! I'm trying to find my footing here and get into the groove. It's a challenge. I have places I want this story to go and I'm trying not to treat any of the exposition as filler, and yet my present life circumstances have me there lol. 
> 
> I'll be posting a chapter a week for the foreseeable future. As promised, more study group. Maybe more Pierce? Who knows! Is it Pierce? Is it just a construct of our imagination? Is there reality or just so so much meta? We'll figure that out. And hopefully get gay in the process.


	4. Act I, Scene III

The car ride back to Greendale was silent. Troy had called shotgun, so Abed and Molly had been left to ride in the back. Annie was the first one to break the silence.

"Abed," she said anxiously. "I know you're not good with change, so I think there are a few things I need to warn you about before we get there."

"That was the old Abed," replied Abed. "The new Abed is slightly more flexible."

"Up to 1.3 percent more flexible," said Molly. "Just compared to the Abed from the stories I heard on the plane ride over. He can be up to 2 percent more flexible on a good day." A short pause. "That sounded like an innuendo. It wasn't. I won't interrupt again."

Annie began pulling into the parking lot. "I know, Abed, but I still think I should tell you-"

But it was too late. His eyes widened and a high-pitched whine escaped his lips.

"Slow down," Molly commanded. "Don't fully stop the car though. He needs to dramatically exit the vehicle. You can pull to a stop once he's outside."

"Um, okay?" Annie said doubtfully.

Annie did as instructed and Abed climbed from the vehicle, allowing it to come to a stop behind him. He spun around to fully take in all the sights.

"What happened to it?" he asked.

Annie and the others got out of the car.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Annie said gently. "It's the most awful thing, Abed. The school was sold again last year and the new owners are terrible."

"Who are they, Annie?" Abed asked. "My god, who could have done this?"

She steeled herself as if daring herself to say the unthinkable. "Hot Topic."

Lightning flashed, followed by a clap of thunder.

"Oh yeah," Annie said in her usual tone. "We'd better get inside. The weather channel said there was a thunderstorm warning for tonight."

Troy and Abed began following her toward the main building, but Molly lingered. "Shouldn't we park the car? I mean, we can't leave it here in the middle of the lot."

The others looked at her like she was insane. 

"Just leave it," Troy said. "It's fine."

They started walking again and Molly wondered what she'd gotten herself into. She hurried to catch up with them. "Still," she said. "I'd feel better if we at least got it to the curb..."

They climbed the front steps which were painted neon colors that were already fading and peeling in places. There was brightly colored graffiti as far as the eye could see, and every building was painted in various colors.

The bright green door swung open just as they reached it.

"Well, well, well," cackled a rather evil voice. "Look who decided to drop in. All according to plan."

Lightning flashed again.

"Chang, it was a long drive," Annie said wearily. "Just let us in."

The Asian man in the doorway dropped the evil act immediately and instantly seemed almost normal. "Yeah, you'd better get in before the storm starts, I heard we might be getting flash flooding. Come in, we put out finger sandwiches." 

Molly was fascinated by this odd little man. "Are they made out of actual fingers?"

Chang delighted in the chance to cackle wickedly again. "Harvested fresh from Greendale students!"

"Chang!" Annie admonished. 

He went back to normal immediately. "No, seriously, they're not." He cackled one more time. "Or are they?"

"I know how to make finger cookies," Molly said. "You've just got to shape the sugar cookies perfectly."

He went back to normal. "Who's the new girl?" he asked. 

"Molly Plotter," she said, without offering a hand to shake. "Boogatron Media."

"She knows how to make finger cookies _and_ doesn't make eye contact?" Chang said. "She's the full package! You, Molly Plotter, seem absolutely delightful."

"Chang, just let us inside," Troy said impatiently.

His demeanor changed again. "Of course," he cackled, gesturing for them to follow him. "Follow me, before I _Chang_ my mind..."

They followed him inside and Troy shut the door behind them. 

"Did he just use his name as a pun?" Molly whispered.

"He does that," Annie said wearily. "You stop noticing after a while. It's usually only on the word 'change'."

"So _cool_ ," she breathed with the most enthusiasm any of them had seem so far. "I wish I had a pun name!"

"You know," Troy said. "I worried about how you'd adjust to Greendale's special brand of crazy, but you might actually belong here."

"So is your school always like this?" Molly asked obliviously. "Is this like a party? I've never seen glow sticks and black lights at a school before. And all these movie posters too! Is that one for Panic! At the Disco?"

"I told you, Hot Topic bought it," Annie said. "Part of the deal is that they get to turn the hallways into roaming product placement."

"Hot Topic just bought a school?" Molly asked. "That doesn't make sense. What advantage do they get from it? Next you'll be telling me that Which Wich bought it to teach the sandwich arts."

"Subway," Abed said.

"Hm?"

"Subway bought it last time, not Which Wich."

"Right," Molly said. "Because that makes so much more sense?"

"Best not to mention Subway here though," Abed said. "A lot of bad memories."

"Mostly for Britta," added Troy.

"Don't mention Honda either, just to be safe. Especially in front of Britta."

"...Why?" asked Molly.

"She had kind of a thing with Subway," Troy said. "It didn't end well."

"Like...food poisoning?" Molly said hopefully.

A door up ahead opened and two people stepped out. They were bickering in whispers.

"Well I don't know what to do-" whispered a British man in a sweater vest.

"Aren't you supposed to be the expert?" hissed a blonde lady.

Annie's heart sank. "So no change then?" she asked Chang.

Chang shook his head sadly. "If anything, he's only gotten worse since you left."

The two bickering people became aware that they weren't alone.

"Hi guys!" said the blonde lady, plastering on an unconvincing smile. "I'm so glad you came! It's so nice to see you!"

"Britta, Chang says he's worse," Annie said anxiously. "Maybe we should all go see him. You know, as a group? Make it like old times?"

"Oh you do _not_ want to go in there," Chang said, chuckling.

"Why not?" Annie asked.

Britta exchanged an anxious look with the dark-haired man next to her. "Well," Britta said. "How do I say this diplomatically-"

"He's completely lost it," Chang said gleefully. "I say this on the basis of 'it takes one to know one', but he's gone completely crazy."

"Chang!" Britta protested. "That's not...I was looking for a more _clinical_ term..."

The man felt it was his turn to speak and piped up in an English accent. "I believe that we in the psychological profession would clinically diagnose him as having gone round the bend at this point. In England, we'd say he's completely feathered his knickers."

Nobody noticed Molly look at him strangely for this comment.

Britta sighed. "Duncan, you're no help either."

"Guys," Troy said, raising a tentative hand. "What's going on here?"

Everyone froze.

"Oh this is good," Chang laughed. "You haven't told them yet?"

Annie shifted uncomfortably. "There wasn't really a good time..."

"On the entire hour ride back to Greendale?" Chang asked. 

"Well fine!" she said, dismissively. "I just hoped that by the time I got back he'd be better! Then we wouldn't have to deal with it!"

"Can someone _please_ explain to me what's going on?" asked Troy again.

Annie's eyes fluttered and her lips trembled as she struggled to find a way to say it. "Oh Troy...It's Jeff."

"What happened?" Troy asked. "Oh did he die too? I thought it was just the Dean who died, but if Jeff died too, I'm not prepared emotionally for two funerals right now-"

"What? No!" Annie said. "It's worse! He's..." She looked at Britta to find the clinical way to say it.

Britta sighed. "He's gone crazy, okay? Ever since the Dean died...You know, it's easier if we just show you."

In the strange overlap between our universe and The Beyond, an old man chuckled. "I always said Winger would crack up one of these days. This is gonna be good. Someone get me some popcorn."

...

Jeff Winger was at work in the old study room. He clearly hadn't slept in days and was muttering to himself as he pinned another note on his conspiracy board.

"Memorial?" Abed asked. "We're not dead."

"Speak for yourself, asshole," said a rotund older man as he shuffled past. 

"Shut up, Leonard, nobody was talking to you," Jeff snapped.

"Leonard?" Britta said gently. "Jeff, Leonard died last year. Don't you remember?"

"What are you talking about?" Jeff snapped, turning to face her. "He's right there behind Pierce..." He suddenly realized the flaw in his logic.

"You can see me?" asked the other old man, the one who may have been formerly known as Pierce. "Hey Jeff! Jeff, look at me!"

But it was too late. By remembering the logic that binds our reality from the spiritual plane, Jeff Winger was once again unable to perceive him.

Troy chose this moment to speak. "Hey, Jeff. Buddy. It's been a while. Sorry it took us so long to get here. Apparently someone put _Abed_ in charge of reaching out to me, and in stead of calling me like a normal person, he decided to go around the country looking for me."

Annie could see a dangerous situation was brewing. "But the important thing is we're here. The Greendale Seven. The old study group back together again!"

"Except Shirley." Troy said. "Where is she?"

"She's around somewhere," Britta said. "She had to step out for a moment. She was finding a certain someone a little difficult to deal with." She looked pointedly at Jeff.

"Which brings us back around to why it says Memorial on the door," Abed said.

"The Dean couldn't bear anyone to use this room after most of you left," Duncan explained. "He closed it off. Made it a sort of shrine-"

"He called it a museum," Britta said, trying to find a nicer way to say it. But she conceded. "But yeah, it was basically a shrine."

Jeff hadn't said a word through all of this. He'd just kept staring.

"Jeff?" Annie pressed gently. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

The study group had always looked to Jeff for cues on what to do next, so it was distressing to see him in such a state. For a moment it almost seemed like he was on the verge of saying something truly groundbreaking, when all of a sudden...

"Woah, sweet conspiracy board!" Molly said, rushing over to examine the project Jeff had been working on. "What's it tracking? I'm a cryptid girl myself, but I'll track any mystery. I've never seen an honest-to-god wall of crazy in real life, so this is really exciting!"

Molly had been trying to tune out any personal drama that was occurring. If pressed about it, she'd say it was because it wasn't her business. The truth was, it made her uncomfortable. She'd allowed her eyes to wander around the room.

Jeff was at a loss. "Who's this?" he asked. "I'm like 99% sure I've never seen her in my life."

"Molly Plotter, Boogatron Media," she said indifferently. "It's even got little strings! I love little strings! So what are we tracking?"

"The Dean," Jeff said. 

"Oh the guy who died?" she asked casually.

The air in the room became very tense.

"He didn't die," Jeff said. "That's what I've been trying to tell everyone!"

Britta sighed. "Jeff, denial is a perfectly normal expression of grief-"

"This isn't denial, Britta!" Jeff snapped. "Cool it with the pseudo-psychological crap!"

She put her hands in front of her in a placating manner. "Alright, we're moving on to anger."

"It doesn't make any sense!" Jeff said, returning his attention to the aforementioned wall of crazy. "The Dean just _happens_ to croak in an 'accident involving several vibrators'? Does that _sound_ like the Dean?"

All those from Greendale exchanged a look. "Yes," they said in unison.

"I don't mean the part about the vibrators," he said. "We all know that's him. I just mean there's no way he died from it. Absolutely no way. I'm going to find out what really happened and prove the Dean is still alive. I mean we've gone through something like this before, when Chang kidnapped him! We have to at least _consider_ the possibility of a Doppel-Deaner!"

"I'm sorry wait _what_?" Molly asked. "I'm missing a lot of context here. Kidnapped? By _Chang_? _Doppel-Deaner?_ What kind of school is this?"

"What kind of school indeed."

They all turned around to find a newcomer joining them in their study room. The stranger was a young woman, approximately mid-twenties. She had jet-black hair that fell to her shoulders and had one stripe of Manic Panic Rock 'N' Roll Red painted on the right side. She was ghostly pale except for grey liquid matte lipstick that was beginning to crack in such a way that she almost looked like an ancient statue visited by the ghost of time. Her eyes were rimmed with heavily smudged black eyeliner and grey eye shadow. Her black leather trench coat was adorned with spikes and chains. It was hard to tell what she was wearing under it, except for black-and-white striped tights that were ripped enough to see fishnet stockings that she'd taken the time to wear under them. She completed the look with combat boots. She spoke in a disinterested deadpan as she looked around the room.

"So," she said. "The Greendale Seven. The famous study group."

"We're not all here," Troy said. "We're missing some members."

"Yes, I know," the woman said. "I can't do anything about Pierce Hawthorne, but I do know that Shirley Bennett is standing right behind me."

They'd all been so focused on the strange newcomer that they hadn't even noticed her. Shirley took the opportunity to step into the room. "Hi guys," she said. "Sad day, isn't it?"

"I've only ever seen the study group in photographs," the stranger said. She took a stroll around the room to look at them all in turn. "Abed. Annie. Britta. Troy. Shirley. Jeff. Then of course we have the outlying elements. Ben Chang. Ian Duncan. Then there's..." She'd come to Molly and realized she didn't know her. "I'm sorry, I don't think I've ever seen you before in my life."

"Molly Plotter," she said helpfully. "Boogatron Media."

"Right," the stranger said. "I'm gonna ignore you unless you're relevant. Is that cool?"

"Go on ahead," Molly said graciously. "This just got interesting."

The stranger got on with it as if nothing had happened. "Of course I know the ghosts of the deceased are still with us. Leonard Rodriguez. Pierce Hawthorne. Alex 'Star-Burns' Osbourne. Of course he's not really dead, but I've heard from multiple sources that he's 'dead to us', so we'll keep him on the list."

"I'm sorry," Jeff said. "Not to interrupt, but who the hell are you?"

"Dahlia Carver," the stranger said. "I represent the Pelton Estate. You should all sit down. We need to talk."

Nobody moved except Molly, who immediately took a seat.

"Not you," Dahlia said. 

"Oh?" Molly asked innocently. "Did you want me to stand? I can stand back up."

"I mean, I guess it's fine," Dahlia said. "You're just not really relevant, so I don't even know if you want to be here?"

"I'm helping to handle funeral arrangements," Molly said.

"She is?" asked Jeff, Annie, and Britta in unison.

"We decided she'd help on the way over," Troy said. 

"She's good at arranging stuff," said Abed.

"Point is, I can stay if it'll help," said Molly.

"I don't have a problem with it as long as no one else does," Dahlia said. "But we really need to get started."

"Started on what?" asked Annie.

"The last testament of Dean Craig Pelton."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really looking for an Aubrey Plaza type for Dahlia if that helps lmao. I'm a sucker for deadpan.


	5. Act I, Scene IV

Dahlia Carver loaded a VHS into the school use rolling television set, and took a seat at the study table to watch it.

"Who still uses VHS?" asked Annie.

"I think it's retro," said Molly.

The first thing on screen was Craig Pelton who was adjusting his camera. He backed away and took a seat.

"Good evening, Greendale," he said. "If you're seeing this, then I must be, y'know, dead. I haven't been kidnapped again - that's a totally separate video in the event of another _Chang_ napping." He chuckled to himself before getting serious again. "I've called you all here today because you're practically family. I want to leave behind to you all that I can. Unfortunately, I don't have much. I sank all of my money into this school, so that's a bust. I'd like to request that the arrangements for the wake be carried out by Annie, Shirley, and Duncan." He leaned forward to stage whisper conspiratorially. "Someone's gotta look after him, you know." He sat back. "The rest of you are free to help, of course, but I've split up my estate between all of you. I am leaving the title of Dean to Jeffrey Winger. Jeffrey, this is very important. You're the Dean now. You're my legacy. You must run this school with honor. My greatest regret was selling it all to Hot Topic. Don't make the same mistakes I did." He smiled. "Now I don't have many requests for my wake, but I want it to be a _real_ party. I won't stand for any of this somber gloomy stuff. Go all out. Good luck."

A moment of silence followed this video.

"Well that's just great," Duncan said. "I've been working here for two decades and they promote _Winger_?"

"Duncan, did you even want the job?" Shirley asked.

"You don't know!" Duncan said indignantly. "I might have done!"

"Jeff?" Annie said anxiously. "How are you feeling?"

Jeff snapped out of his trance. "It doesn't matter," he said. "It doesn't matter because this isn't happening. I'm not the _dean_ of frigging _Greendale._ And you know why? Because this is proof. Proof that the Dean is still alive."

"What?" Annie said. "No it's not."

"Of course it is, Annie! The Dean died in a freak accident! How could he know this was going to happen? He's trying to give us clues!" He got up to jab a finger at the television screen. "This was filmed in his office! I have to go there and look for clues!"

"Haven't you already tried that?" asked Annie.

"I'll try again!" he said. "Come on, Annie. Don't you work for the FBI now? We can crack this case together just like old times!"

"No!" Annie got to her feet. "I've got to put my foot down! This isn't healthy, Jeff! I won't stand by and enable your delusions!"

"Troy? Abed?" Jeff asked. "What about you two? The Inspector and his..." He tried to remember the nerd reference that Abed liked. "Trusty advisor would want to help me crack this."

"It's Constable," said Troy. "And I don't know, Jeff. Maybe it's time for the Constable to hang up his hat."

"We'll do it," Abed said. "I mean, I will, but you don't have to if you don't want to, Troy."

"Still not in, Annie?" asked Jeff.

Annie's resolve was faltering, but she stood her ground. "I'm sorry, I won't."

"He thought you might say that, Edison," said a voice. "Which is why he called in the real talent."

Annie's anger flared as she turned toward the door. "Annie Kim? What are _you_ doing here?"

Annie's old rival, Other Annie, walked into the room. "Jeff called me in to help locate the Dean. I knew you couldn't handle a case like this. That's what you get for calling in the FBI. This is a job for Annie Kim, CIA. You go and do your little funeral arrangements. That's all you're any good for. Leave this to the grownups."

Annie made an indignant noise. "Uh! You know what? I changed my mind! I'm in! But only to prove that the Dean really _is_ dead and you're being crazy!"

"I'll take those odds," said Abed. "I'm on Annie's team."

"Then I'm on Jeff's," said Troy.

"What about the funeral arrangements?" asked Shirley.

"I'll help with that," said Molly.

"Me too," said Chang.

"Okay," Shirley said doubtfully. "But this will _not_ be a repeat of Bear Down For Midterms."


	6. Act I, Scene V

"Don't you two think you're being a little insane?" Britta asked, as she followed the others into the hallway.

"A little insane?" Jeff scoffed.

"This is Greendale, Britta," Chang said. "We're _all_ a little insane!"

"That wasn't the point I was making, Chang!" snapped Jeff. "The point is that the Dean is out there somewhere! And we have to find him!"

"Annie!" Britta protested. "Why are you going along with this!"

"Because we need to snap him out of this!" Annie replied. "This has gone on long enough and I won't put up with it anymore!"

"Is that the reason?" Annie Kim asked. She pushed up her glasses and moved slowly forward until she was right in Annie's face. "You sure it's not because you know you couldn't handle it?"

Dahlia tilted her head to the side. "Oh I get it," she said, with just the slightest hint of interest. "The Annie's were like a thing. They're probably gonna make out or something. I can feel the sexual tension."

"What? No!" said Troy. "You've got that wrong. Annie and Jeff were a thing. Sort of."

"Which Annie?" Dahlia asked. "Actually, it doesn't matter. He's like way old, it's weird either way. Besides, I thought Jeff was gay?"

"What?" Jeff asked, suddenly paying attention. "I'm not gay! Who told you that?"

"The Dean was very adamant on that point," Dahlia said. "You were apparently playing hard to get? Bet you're sorry now."

"I'm - I'm not - _what_?" he spluttered indignantly. "Who are you again?"

"I'm getting impatient," she replied. "We need to get on with the arrangements for the wake. We've already sent out the invitations, everyone will be here tonight."

" _Tonight?"_ Annie said. "There's no way we can plan a memorial in a few hours!"

"I can do it," said Molly. "I'm a production assistant. Whatever you need, I've got it. Do you have a local party supply store or a Walmart-"

The lights flickered, then went out. The air conditioner stopped, leaving only silence and still air behind.

"No, no, no, no!" Annie shouted, running to a switch and trying to turn the lights back on.

Britta ran to a window. "It's no good, Annie, it looks like the power's gone out for the whole street. And you guys had better look at this."

They crowded around the window to see that in the half hour since they'd arrived, the parking lot had been completely flooded.

"The weather channel said we should expect flash flooding!" Annie exclaimed. "We need to do a supply run now before the storm gets bad!"

"I think the storm's already bad," said Shirley. "If one of us goes out there now, there's no telling if we'll be able to get back. It's not safe."

"But what about the wake!" Annie said.

"I assume you have a theatre department?" Molly said. 

"Yeah, but I don't see how that's-"

"As long as we have a theatre department, we have all the supplies we need," Molly said. "I've done more with less." She looked to Abed. "Are you comfortable with me delegating tasks or would you prefer to lead?"

He was surprised to see her taking initiative. She didn't normally talk this much, especially without being asked. "Whatever you need to do. This isn't my area of expertise."

"Okay, so can you separate yourselves into two groups for me?" she said. "All those who are having Dean Conspiracy Drama go to the left and all those who are actually going to help me go to the right."

"You heard the lady," Abed said. "A Plot to the left, B Plot to the right!"

"Abed," Jeff said. "How many times do we have to tell you there are no A Plots and B Plots in real life?" But he begrudgingly separated along with everyone else.

"Alright," Molly said once this was done. "Everyone in the A Plot, go do whatever it is you're doing. I've already decided you'd just slow us down until your drama is taken care of, so meet up with us when you've figured that out and are ready to be useful to me." Nobody moved. "I mean now. Go on. Move it."

"You heard her," Abed said. "Let's go. We have a case to solve."

"Not if we solve it first," said Troy.

Molly watched for a moment while they began their journey to the Dean's office. 

"I hate to be the one to point this out," said Shirley. "But they took most of our good people. There aren't a whole lot of us left."

"I'm with Shirley," said Duncan. "In England, when we had this few people show up to something we just called it Piers Morgans' birthday party."

Molly looked at him strangely again before deciding that this wasn't the time. "I know we can do this. I've done bigger projects all by myself, so if we work together, we can knock this out in no time. It would be easier to tell who should do what if I knew you at all, so I'm gonna need you to quickly tell me what strengths you bring to the table. Maybe limey loafers should start."

"Who? Me?" Duncan said after noticing her pointed comment.

She crossed her arms. "Anyone else here match that description? What do you bring to this operation?"

"I'm the psychology professor," he said. 

"Grief stuff, could be useful later," she said. "But I mean what can we use now?"

He held up a flask. "Alcohol."

She got an idea. "You can't do an alcohol run in this weather. But you're English. How much more of that stuff do you have in your office?"

"Why do you assume that I do?" he asked.

"The flask and the accent and the fact that you're already drunk," she said. "I'll need you to gather up whatever you've got on hand. I'm not gonna make it my business whether you've got any stashed outside of your office or in your car, but wherever you have it, we need it." She looked at Britta, who was very visibly not paying attention. "And you can go."

"What?" Britta said. "You haven't even told me what to do yet!"

"You're obviously tweaked on something so like I guess if you have more of that lying around you can get it," she said doubtfully. "But I doubt you have enough for sharesies. You're not paying attention though so it's obvious you'd rather be with the A Plot, so you can go."

"I don't want to be with the A Plot!" she insisted. "I want to be here! Doing...boring things! I don't do drama!"

"You're not going to be any good to us here if your mind is on the A Plot," Molly said firmly. "So why don't you go join them for now and report back later?"

"Fine!" she said. "But only because I probably would have done that anyway!" She stormed off.

"Okay, now they're out of the way," Molly said. 

"You wanted them to go?" asked Shirley.

"Yeah, Britta looked like she was just gonna argue and get high the whole time, which I don't have time for," Molly said. "I won't say that Duncan is completely doing busy work, but mostly I didn't have time to deal with whatever nonsense he's on. So that leaves me with two people who look semi-competent, and Chang. I mean, not to pass judgements or anything, but Chang looks like a wild card who might do anything at any moment so it's good to have something around to entertain me while complicating the B Plot. It's just good structure. Duncan may or may not return with alcohol, which I've heard is supposed to be at these things? I don't really drink. So we need to deal with decorations, music, and food. I don't know what we have on hand in the cafeteria, we might just have to crack open a few vending machines and make do."

"Make do?" Shirley said. "This is a wake, not a three-year-old's birthday party. I'll handle the food. I'm sure I can bake something up in no time."

Molly was relieved that someone had stepped up. "Thank you - Shirley, was it? That'll be very helpful. But don't hesitate to go to the vending machines if you need extra ingredients. Candy bars can be melted down for flavorings, stuff like that. We shouldn't be too proud to work with what we have. You look like you're up to the challenge."

"I can get started on decorations," Dahlia said. "I can think up a playlist while we work. The good news is that DJs basically don't exist anymore - anyone with an ipod and a speaker can do it. If push comes to shove, we can reroute music through the intercom system."

"Good!" Molly said. "Quick thinking!"

"And what should I do?" Chang asked. "Ben Chang reporting for duty!"

"Your first name is Ben?" Molly asked.

"Yeah, why?" he asked.

"It's just such an innocent name," she said. "Not as evil as I thought. Would you prefer me to call you Ben or Chang?"

"Ben's fine," he said. "But everyone calls me Chang."

"Huh," she said. "Okay, fine. I mean, unless you want to be called the evil wizard just for sake of narrative cohesion?"

"I can get behind that, yeah," he said. "I like the sound of that."

"Okay, Wizard," Molly said. "Your job is to help with decorations and sew the seeds of dissent and mayhem within our ranks as an attempt to destroy us from the inside. Do you think you can handle it?"

"I won't let you down, boss," he said, somewhat mistily. It was good to be recognized and valued for his talents.

"Alright, I'll be helping with coordination, so here's my card," she said, passing each of them a card with her phone number. "Call me if you have any problems or questions. I'm not at all good at baking - I tend to explode things - so I think I'd best work with Dahlia for now...Oh but that leaves Shirley on her own! Maybe we should reevaluate. Shirley, would you be willing to take Chang on as your assistant?"

Shirley was obviously not thrilled with this idea. "You want me to babysit Chang?" she said incredulously.

"It's the second most important job," Molly said. "Second only to the catering. I believe you can do this. And I know you could use an extra pair of hands. Nobody should have to bake for an entire wake in just a few hours on her own."

"Can I help, Shirley?" Chang said earnestly. "Please?"

Shirley did have to admit that she needed the extra help. "Alright, fine, you can help. But stay out of my way and follow my directions _exactly."_ She looked at Molly to make sure they were absolutely clear. "First sign of trouble, and I'm sending him back for you to deal with."

"Wouldn't want it any other way," Molly said. "Now we don't have much time. _Break!"_

She marched away around the corner, leaving them all to stare after her. A few seconds passed and she poked her head back around the corner.

"Oh sorry?" she said. "I should've been more clear. That was sort of an 'everyone to your battle stations' moment. But it's good that you're still here. I actually don't know which direction the art department is in? Anyone want to give me directions?"

"It's alright," Dahlia said. "I know the way."

"Were you a student?" Molly asked. 

"Ew, no," Dahlia said. "I've just spent way too much time here."

The two groups went their separate ways, leaving one old man standing alone in the spot where this world perfectly aligns with the next. He floundered indignantly for a moment.

"Wait!" he shouted. "What am I supposed to do? Hello! Typical whatshername. Who put you in charge anyway? I've never seen you in my life and suddenly you think you're New Annie?" 

He kicked at a recycling bin and his foot went right through it, sending him toppling to the ground as he overbalanced. 

"Right, thanks!" he shouted. "Nobody help me up, I'm fine! Not that any of you bozos care anyway."

He clambered to his feet, using the recycling bin for support. Were he a smarter man in life, perhaps he would have noticed that this time his hand did not go through it. The bin was somehow supporting his weight! But he was in such an agitated state that the thought did not cross his mind.


	7. Act II, Scene I

Jeff threw yet another box in frustration.

"Give it up, Jeff," Annie said. "There's nothing here. You've been through this all already. There's no magical clue that's gonna lead you to the big conspiracy. The Dean's dead. You need to accept that."

"Accept that?" he repeated. "I'll accept that when there's proof!"

"I was there when you identified the body," she said gently.

"Don't say it like that," Jeff said. "'Identified the body.' As if any of us knew it well enough to say that was definitely him."

"I've taken the liberty of looking through the coroner's photographs," said Annie Kim. "And I have to agree with Jeff. The body was mangled beyond positive identification. It's just sloppy detective work to assume it's him."

Annie instantly got defensive. "Well it's too late now, isn't it? The cremation took place this morning! There's no way to run his prints through the database again!"

"Sloppy," Annie Kim said under her breath in a very self-satisfied way.

Annie's emotions were running high so she instantly lunged at her. "Hey you know what-"

Abed stepped in between them. "Ladies, I realize that there are a lot of emotions in this room right now but now is not the time. Walk it off." He waited for Troy to back him up with a 'you heard the man', but he very pointedly kept looking through the office for clues without offering a word. So Abed was left to deal with it on his own. "You heard me, I said WALK IT OFF."

Annie Kim simply returned to what she was doing with a self-satisfied smirk on her face while Annie Edison let out a frustrated noise and stomped over to the other side of the room.

"Thank you," Abed said. "Now I realize that this is sort of a competition, but we need to put our emotions aside and work on finding evidence one way or another. We're not going to make any progress while we're all fighting with each other-"

"I found something!" Troy said.

"What?" Annie said as they all gathered around.

"What did you find?" asked Jeff.

"This slinky!" he said excitedly as he turned a rainbow slinky over and over in his hands.

"Troy, put that down," said Annie. "This is the Dean's office. You don't know where that's been."

"What?" he said obliviously. 

"So what you're saying is that you didn't find a clue?" asked Annie Kim. Her disappointment and frustration was only barely concealed.

"What are you talking about?" asked Troy. "I found a clue."

"A slinky isn't a clue-"

"It could be! You don't know what's important!"

"Clues always look unimportant until the third act," Abed acknowledged. 

"So you want us to bag and tag a slinky?" asked Annie Kim.

Troy looked at her like she was insane. "No? Because then I couldn't play with it? Obviously?" He waved a hand at the desk. "But you should probably bag and tag that piece of paper with the blueprints on it."

Everyone looked at the desk.

"Troy," Annie Edison said slowly. "You called us over here to look at a slinky, but you weren't going to tell us you found a piece of paper with a clue on it?"

"I did tell you," he said. "Just now."

The two Annies made eye contact briefly before leaping toward the desk and attempting to wrestle each other out of the way to get to the clue.

They were interrupted by chuckling from the doorway.

"I see I arrived just in time," Duncan said. "To think, I was going to stay with the B Plot when this is _infinitely_ more interesting."

The two Annies didn't stop fighting even as Annie Edison snapped: "Duncan, what are you doing?"

"No no," Duncan said. "Don't stop on my account, ladies. I'd hate to break this up."

"What are you doing in here?" asked Jeff. "Weren't you staying to help plan the wake?"

"I was sent to find alcohol," said Duncan. "I know the Dean has some stashed in his desk." He moved toward it when a piece of paper caught his eye. "Oh what's this..." He picked it up. "Are we working on another world record attempt?"

"Why would you say that, Duncan?" asked Abed.

He held the blueprints up. "Because these blueprints are for a reconstruction of New Fluffytown and Blanketsburg. With some adjustments, of course."

Annie Kim had managed to wrestle our Annie to the ground but stopped when she heard this. "It's what?"

"Let me see that," Abed said, snatching the blueprints. He studied them for a moment. "These are impressive adjustments. These could actually work. I wonder how long the Dean was working on this." He looked up. "We have to get these to the B Plot immediately."

"Why?" asked Jeff.

"Because it's the Dean's final wish," Abed said gravely.

But Duncan had stopped paying attention and had refocused entirely on Annie Kim who still had Annie Edison pinned to the floor. The struggling had stopped and Annie was just staring up at her narrative foil.

"I'd like to stay here, actually," Duncan said. "If there's even a slim chance they're about to start making out-"

"What?" Annie Edison said as she snapped out of it. "Ew, Duncan, don't be gross!" She pushed Annie Kim off of her. She got to her feet. "Let's go."

"Perv," Annie Kim said as she pushed past him.


	8. Act II, Scene II

Shirley was impatient to get this over with. She could think of nothing she wanted to be doing less than making what would likely be sub-standard food for a wake at the last minute. 

The cafeteria wasn't at all like she remembered it. The florescent lights had been replaced by black lights, much like they had been in the rest of the school. The tables were painted with different neon colors and graffiti was drawn on them. Music posters of pop punk bands lined the walls. Shirley took a moment to stare silently at the site where her old sandwich shop, Shirley's Sandwiches, had once stood. Her shop had had a rocky history, but it had finally become moderately successful with several stores in the area. She sold the franchise at a massive profit to a corporation that ran it into the ground within a year. Now nothing stood in its place. The Dean had been petitioned with several ideas for what to use the space as, but he refused. He kept this here as yet another shrine to the Greendale Seven.

"Some legacy," Shirley muttered under her breath.

"What was that?" Chang asked. "What are we looking at?"

"Nothing," she said. "Do me a favor, and stay out of my way as much as possible. I can't have you making this any harder than it has to be."

"When have I ever made things harder than they had to be?" Chang asked.

"Are you really asking me that right now?" she said indignantly. She decided there wasn't time for this. "Let's just get to work."

She and Chang made their way into the kitchen. Shirley instantly began opening cupboards and assembling ingredients.

"It's not much, but it'll do," she said. "It has to."

"What can I do?" Chang asked.

"You can stand there and keep out of the way," she said. 

"But New Annie said I can help," said Chang.

"New Annie?" she asked irritably as she began combining some ingredients for what she hoped would become a cake.

"I guess she's not really New Annie," said Chang. "She seems nicer and not fake nice like Annie is sometimes. But she's bossy like Annie always was."

Shirley nodded as she took Chang's point. "She always was that."

"I'm surprised she let anyone take the lead on party planning," Chang admitted. "You remember how strict her vision always was."

"I guess Jeff came first this time," she said. "Which is fine by me, because I didn't need her buzzing around telling me how to do my job."

"Still, we could use her help. She might have been bossy, but she had good ideas. Whatever she sets her mind to usually gets done."

"Either that or she starts a riot," Shirley said.

"So can I do something?" Chang asked. "Mix something or stir something?"

"Stirring something usually is mixing something," she said. "And no. Just stay out of trouble and for God's sake, stop distracting me."

"I just want to help-" he insisted.

"You can help by being quiet!" she snapped. "I know we haven't seen each other in years, Chang, but I still remember how much disaster you usually bring down on us when you're trying to help."

Chang was crestfallen. "Sorry," he said. "I just wanted to help. The Dean was my friend-"

"You had him kidnapped," she reminded him.

"It was complicated, okay?" he said. "I know I did a lot of bad things, but that's all behind me. I want to give him a good funeral, one that he'd deserve. Maybe that will make up for all the bad things I did."

Shirley almost felt sorry for the little man and felt her resolve weaken. But only slightly. "Alright," she said. "You can help by getting more food out of the vending machines like Molly said. Grab anything you can find."

"I'm on it, boss," he said, giving her a salute. "I won't let you down."

He rushed off and she sighed with relief. She could finally get some work done. But her relaxation was short lived.

A loud crash of broken glass rang out through the silent hall.

"Chang?" Shirley called. "What was that?" No answer. "Chang?" Still nothing so she peeked out into the dining area. "Chang, I swear to Jesus if you're out there with an ax planning on murdering me or something I will haunt you, so help me God." She picked up the nearest large weapon she could find (a broom) and went out to find him.

"Found the food."

Shirley jumped and nearly hit him with the broom as she swung around. 

"What the hell were you doing?" she asked. "Sneaking around like that?" She noticed that he was carrying as many chips and snacks as he could carry. "And where did you get all of those this fast?" He looked away and she followed his gaze to a snack machine in the corner which was smashed in and had obviously been raided.

"What?" he said. "We're on a time crush."

"Fine," she said, reluctantly accepting it. "Let's get these in the kitchen then you're cleaning that mess up."

He followed her back into the kitchen.

A lot of memories in here," he said as he unloaded the loot on the counter and took the broom from her.

"You still work here, Chang," she reminded him. "You can't do the nostalgic thing when you're here every day."

"Still," he said. "Lots of good memories." He chuckled nostalgically to himself. "You remember when Abed used to run the kitchen?"

"You mean the chicken finger mafia?" she asked, raising her eyebrows. "I haven't thought about that in ten years. That must've been during our first year at Greendale."

Chang laughed. "Yeah, it was. I remember I was one of the first people Abed was slipping extra fingers to on the side."

"For a ten percent bump in our test scores," Shirley reminded him. "It wasn't an act of kindness, you were taking delicious bribes off that sweet boy."

"Hey, I wasn't the only one taking bribes, lady!" he replied indignantly. "Most of the staff were in on it too. Even the Dean-" Shirley looked at him directly and he broke off mid-sentence.

"Maybe we'd best leave the reminiscing to when there's less work to do," she said. She shoved a bowl in his hands. "Go clean that mess up. People will be arriving in a few hours and we can't have them stepping over broken glass."

Chang went out to do just that and it only took a moment before Shirley heard another crash. She threw down her spoon and raced out there. "Chang, what did I just say?"

Another vending machine was shattered, but Chang was nowhere near it. "I didn't do it," he said.

"Like hell you didn't-"

The old man clambered out of the wreckage of the vending machine that he'd managed to crash into and looked at his two squabbling former friends. "It's alright," he said irritably. "I'm fine. Nobody help me up." But then he realized the damage he'd caused.

"I swear, I didn't!" Chang insisted. "I was coming out here to sweep and it just exploded!"

The old man smiled as his energy crackled wickedly. He summoned all of his strength and picked up a chair which he then threw into another vending machine.

Chang grabbed Shirley and hid behind her.

"What the hell?" she shouted. 

"I told you I didn't do it!" Chang said.

The invisible old man broke the last vending machine.

"GHOST!" Chang shouted as he sprinted from the room with Shirley not far behind him.


	9. Act II, Scene III

It was a well-known fact that Britta Perry had sampled some drugs in her time. What wasn't as well-known is that she wasn't actually as hardcore about them as she pretended to be. 

What was Britta Perry's true aesthetic? Freewheeling liberal hippie? Punk liberal anarchist? Some other liberal label? She could never decide, but she wasn't about to let the world decide for her. Her whole life was a rebellion against 'the system', but she didn't always know what that meant.

This whole death thing was really getting her down. She'd never been one to get properly sad at a funeral. She'd always say it was because she'd made peace with the cycle of life in the universe and was simply too evolved to waste time grieving over it. After all, she was a psych major. She could just psych her way out of feeling sad.

Of course, actual proper psychologists posited that Britta Perry's lack of grieving stemmed more from a discomfort with the unknown which caused her to detach emotionally from potentially distressing circumstances. Britta was never one to accept consequences and death was the ultimate consequence one could suffer. It was a very real endpoint from which there was no escaping. She could rebel against anything with varying degrees of success, but there was no lobbying the grim reaper. She was good at overthinking to the point of not feeling, and sometimes that overthinking led to creative solutions. That usually meant marijuana, but very rarely anything more hardcore than that.

She wandered aimlessly around the halls and rooted around in her pockets for another joint. She found one. 

"Yeeeeah," she grinned, sticking it in her mouth. But the smile was short-lived. She couldn't find her lighter.

"Mother fu-"

But that small statement caused the joint to slip from her mouth. She swore again and dropped to her knees in an effort to locate it.

The old man observed this scene with mild amusement. The scene in the cafeteria had proved to him that he could indeed affect things in this world if his intent was malicious enough.

Lucky for him, malice came to him as a natural trait. There was nothing he couldn't accomplish when he felt embittered toward a situation.

Britta was still slightly high, so it took her a moment to locate where the joint had rolled to. She smiled when she saw it.

But she wasn't quick enough.

The old man crouched behind her and blew, expelling his spectral lungs in a great burst of hot, dry air. The joint rolled away.

"What the fu..." Britta said. 

She heard a loud banging and jumped to her feet, but it turned out to be just the wind and the rain hammering on the windows.

"Right," she laughed to herself, placing a hand over her heart to quiet its pounding. "The storm. Must've got caught in a weird draft or something."

"What?" the old man said as he stood up. "No! It wasn't the wind, it was me! I did that!"

Britta screamed and whipped around. Then she saw who it was. "What the _hell_ , Pierce! You can't just sneak up on people like that!"

"You can see me?" Pierce said for the second time that night. 

"Of course I can see you," she snapped. "If you're trying to hide, you're not doing a very good job." Her vision swam and shifted slightly, but she still attempted to squint at him to make it all come into focus. "Woah, you're all see-through. How are you doing that...?" She gasped as it hit her. "Wait a minute! Pierce, you're dead!"

"That took you long enough to remember," he said. "Call it a blonde moment..."

"No I mean dead," she insisted. "Like really dead. Like dead dead."

"You don't have to rub it in," he said.

"You _died_ ," she pressed on obliviously. "Pierce, I don't know how to tell you this, but you're dead."

"And you're still a bitch," he said.

She crossed her arms. "There's no need to use that kind of language. Abed says we have to watch our rating."

"You're not even a little scared?" Pierce said, a note of hurt entering into his voice. "I'm a ghost! I'm haunting you! This is a haunting!"

"Ghosts aren't real, Pierce," Britta said logically. "They're manifestations of grief caused by the desire of humans to imagine a life after death or at least a continued state in which we can one day be reunited with those we've lost."

"So how do you explain me being here?" he asked irritably.

She shrugged. "I'm in my old college in the middle of a storm planning a wake for our old Dean and all my friends are back in the same place." She laughed. "Also, I'm really freaking high right now. My brain chemicals are going all zap-zap-zap." Lightning flashed and the lights briefly flickered on and off again when the thunder hit. "Yeah, like that! My mind is clearly filling in the gaps of what my subconscious thinks is missing."

Pierce was really pissed off now. Here was the first person who'd been able to see him for any length of time, and she didn't even believe he was there. "So if I'm not here, then I wouldn't be able to do _this_ , right?" He puffed out his cheeks and blew another gust of wind.

Her hair flew back as the gust hit her and she tried unsuccessfully to hold it down. "Jeez, Pierce, you need like a breath mint of something."

"You can smell that!" he said triumphantly. "So I must be real!"

"Or it could just be all the pot I've smoked," she pointed out.

"Well then how about this?" he asked. He opened a door.

"Maybe it was slightly ajar and the wind blew it open," she said logically. "That's a funny word. Ajar. Ajar ajar ajar. A jar of what?"

"A jar of nunya, maybe," he grumbled. "Okay, I'll prove it to you then. Pick up your doobie."

She laughed. "My _what_ , Pierce? Nobody calls it that."

"Pick it up, just do it!" he said impatiently.

"Whatever," she said. "I was gonna do it anyway." 

She bent down and picked it up. When she got to her feet, he snatched it from her and threw it across the room.

She stared at her empty hand for a second, looked up at Pierce, then back at her hand.

The realization slowly dawned on her.

"GHOST!" she shouted as she sprinted from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be on hiatus until week after next! But I'll be back with 3 new chapters!
> 
> I relate too much to Britta, so expect my own self-deprecation and over analysis to leak through. Abed is my most obvious darling, but Britta is far too much like me.


	10. Act II, Scene IV

"Ghost!" Britta shouted as she ran into the room.

"What?" said Dahlia. 

"Ghost!" Britta said again, as she struggled to catch her breath. "I saw..." She pointed wildly through the door. "Out there!"

"How high are you?" Dahlia asked with just the fainted hint of amusement. "And can I have some?"

"I'm not high, he was really there!" Britta insisted.

"You saw the Dean?" Dahlia asked. "Because these things happen with grief, especially when we're using-"

"No, no, not the Dean!" she insisted. "Pierce! I saw Pierce!"

Now that was a development. "Pierce Hawthorne?"

"Ghost!" Chang yelled as he and Shirley arrived.

"You're a little late," Britta said. "I got there first."

"It threw a chair into the vending machine right in front of my eyes," Shirley said. "There's something unholy going on in this school, I always said the Dean would let something in here one of these days."

"Do you think it was the Dean?" Chang asked. "Like he's trying to communicate?"

"We made the spirit angry by serving Twinkies at his wake, God help us," Shirley replied.

"It wasn't the Dean, guys!" Britta said. "The Dean wouldn't intentionally destroy school property. It was Pierce! I saw him!"

This took a minute to sink in. "Actually that makes more sense," Shirley said.

"Yeah, that tracks," Chang said.

They were joined then by the rest of the group.

"Hey guys, we found something!" Annie said.

"We know, it was Pierce," Britta said.

"What?" Annie said. "No. We found some blueprints the Dean left behind. What are you talking about?"

"Ghosts," said Britta, Shirley, and Chang in unison. 

Thunder clapped outside as if to punctuate this point.

"Ghosts?" Troy repeated, his voice rising in pitch. "Here? Now."

"Don't be ridiculous, Troy," said Annie. "There's no such thing as ghosts. Right, Jeff?"

Jeff didn't answer.

"Jeff?" Annie said again.

"Right," Jeff said. "Except, well..."

"Except what?" asked Troy.

"I may have seen Pierce earlier," Jeff admitted. "Remember in the study room? I brushed it off at the time because I didn't want to admit it, but he was there for a moment standing right behind Leonard. If you guys have seen them too..."

Annie just stared at him in disbelief. "This is ridiculous," she said. "Isn't anyone going to argue that this is ridiculous? Dahlia?"

"I'm an old school goth kid," Dahlia said apologetically. "I've never seen a ghost, but I won't rule them out entirely."

"Molly?" Annie pressed. "You'll back me up, right?"

"Normally I'd be all for logic, but this is too cool of an opportunity," Molly replied. "I just need to shift my brain into story mode. I thought Chang would be our rogue element. I didn't even consider the possibility of vengeful spirits, even though that's a much better narrative."

"We don't have time for this," Annie said. "We need to get back to work. The blueprints the Dean left behind are very clear about how we can construct this blanket fort in the cafeteria, but we all have to pitch in."

"You mean go back out there?" Troy asked. 

"Yes, I mean go back out there!" Annie insisted. "What's with you guys?"

"There are ghosts out there," Troy said. 

"There aren't ghosts out there. You're all being ridiculous. Look, I'll prove it to you." She marched out into the hallway.

"Annie don't go out there!" Troy said.

"Why?" asked Annie, turning around to face them. "Are you any more safe in the theatre room?"

"Good point," he said. 

"See guys?" Annie said. "It's just fine out here. There's nothing waiting out here to attack."

Lightning flashed, illuminating a shadowy figure outside the glass-paned double doors to the parking lot. Annie had her back turned, but the rest of the group could see it clearly.

"Uh, Annie?" Abed said.

"What?" she replied. 

"There's something behind you," he said.

"Don't even try that on me," Annie said. "I'm not going to fall for that one."

"No, I mean it," Abed said.

"It's true," Chang said. "I saw it too."

"Right," Annie said sarcastically. "Like I'm going to believe you. See, take it from me everyone. There's absolutely, positively, no such thing as-"

The double doors came open and Annie turned just in time to see a dripping wet specter of death standing directly behind her.

" _Ghost!"_


	11. Act II, Scene V

Annie backed into the rest of the group, who all stared at the shadowy figure with mounting horror. Dahlia was thrilled at the apparent ghost, but still felt scared in spite of herself. Molly felt no fear, only fascination.

" _Wicked_ ," she said.

Abed privately agreed with her. "I wish I had my camera."

Shirley was the one to take charge.

"Begone, apparition of Satan!" she said, brandishing her cross necklace as a weapon.

"Yeah!" Duncan said, throwing a beer can at it. "Die, ghost! Fuck off!"

"Ouch!" the spirit said as the can hit it and bounced onto the floor. "What the hell, guys! I'm not a ghost!"

"That's exactly what a ghost would say!" Duncan replied. He began taking coins out of his pockets to use as projectiles. "Die, ghost, die!"

"Ouch!" the phantom said again. "Jesus Christ, Duncan, cut it out!" The ghost stepped properly inside and closed the door. It dripped rainwater onto the floor. "I'm not a ghost!"

That's when it clicked for Annie. " _Frankie?_ "

That's when the other Greendale alum realized why the voice was so familiar.

"Wait, Frankie's dead?" asked Abed.

"I keep telling you, I'm not dead!" Frankie said. "I got stuck in my office at the other side of campus when the power went out! I had to walk all the way over here without an umbrella!" That's when she noticed that there were a lot of people gathered in the hallway. "What's going on here?"

"We're holding a wake," Duncan said. "For the Dean."

She blinked rapidly in indignation. "A _wake_? For Dean Pelton? And I suppose my invitation got lost in the mail?"

Everyone suddenly shifted uncomfortably. "Did we forget to invite Frankie?" Annie said out of the corner of her mouth.

"She wasn't on the Dean's guest list," Dahlia said frantically. 

"Oh but he had the chance to invite Duncan," Frankie said. "And a few people I've never seen in my life. That's fun. I bet you even remembered to invite Elroy and Hickey."

"Who and who?" Troy asked.

"Actually, they weren't on the list either," Dahlia said.

"Well that makes me feel a little better," Frankie said. "I'm left off the list along with people who don't currently work here. I've been working here for years and people still forget I'm here. That's great."

"You should stay," Dahlia said. "I'm very sorry for the oversight. I doubt it was intentional."

"It's not like I have a choice," Frankie said. "That storm's getting pretty bad. I'm not going anywhere. Besides, I've been working to get the power back on. I originally tried for find someone at maintenance to help, but nobody was there. Now I'm coordinating with Elroy to see if he can do anything. Yeah that's right, he's here too. Not that you guys bothered to include him either."

Frankie was clearly the answer to all Molly's prayers. "Finally, a competent person," Molly breathed. "Would you be interested in helping us with set up in the meantime? I understand if you don't want to, but the B Plot really could use more characters."

Frankie just stared at her for a moment. "Why does this new person talk like Abed?"

"We probably have the same disorder," Molly said matter-of-factly. "I've always suspected it." She held out a hand. "Molly Plotter, Boogatron Media."

Frankie didn't move forward to take the hand. "I might decide to help," she said. "But I need to dry off first. I'll catch my death."

"Then she really will be a ghost," said Abed.


	12. Act III, Scene I

Pierce Hawthorne sullenly watched his old study group from across the room. He'd been so close to breaking through, but now no one was paying attention to him. It stung, just as it always had in life. He found himself with more motivation to destroy everything he came across if only for the chance at getting recognition.

Leonard Rodriguez had watched these events with interest so took this opportunity to sidle up to him.

"That was some nice haunting," Leonard said. "You've got talent."

"Thanks," Pierce said irritably. He wasn't used to receiving compliments, so never responded appropriately.

"It was a bit amateur though," Leonard continued. "I mean don't get me wrong, the stuff with the vending machines and the wind was great beginners haunting work, but it's still bottom of the barrel stuff."

"You think you could do better?" Pierce demanded.

"I do," said Leonard. "Actually, I know I could. But that's not the point. The point is that you could. These people did nothing but mock and ridicule you during life. Join me and I can help you learn to give 'em what's what."

"Join you?" Pierce said, considering the possibilities. "I don't know, that didn't work out so well for us last time we tried teaming up. I recall we stole a car."

Leonard waved this away. "That was during life, where there were consequences. What's the harm in having a little fun now?"

Pierce watched his study group once more, noting how they all seemed to have moved on without him. He seemed to have been replaced well enough. He'd had to sit by and watch for years as new people got added to the group and he was barely mentioned. As if he was never there.

"What did you have in mind?" he asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are starting to heat up, but I'm afraid I have to leave you again! I'll be back in 2 weeks with 3 new chapters!


	13. Act III, Scene II

Britta Perry wasn't having a very good day.

Wakes aren't cheery affairs anyway, but Britta was having trouble getting through this.

First issue: Jeff's complete instability.

Second issue: she was out of drugs and coming down fast.

Third issue: ghosts.

Fourth issue: WHY IS THERE SO MUCH HOT TOPIC EVERYWHERE?

Dahlia found Britta spray painting something on the wall outside the Dean's office.

"Vandalism," she said, making Britta jump. "My kinda gal." She peered at the message in red paint. "RIP GREENDALE. Hm. Evocative. Did Greendale die? Can you kill something that was never very lively to begin with?"

"It's a protest," Britta said. 

"A protest," Dahlia replied flatly.

"I'm protesting."

"Protesting...what exactly?"

She gestured around broadly. "Everything."

"Again, my kinda gal," Dahlia replied. "But what exactly is 'RIP GREENDALE' supposed to accomplish?"

"It's calling attention to the problem!"

"Which is?"

"That Hot Topic is yet another capitalist machine chewing up and spitting out our school."

Dahlia actually chuckled and cracked a smile, which was an odd look on her. "This is about Hot Topic? Really?"

Britta looked her up and down. "Not that I'd expect a brain-washed Goth wannabe Barbie to understand. You look like just the type who would shop there."

Dahlia raised her eyebrows. She wasn't offended, just amused. "And you're not?"

"I used to be," she said. "Back when it was still cool. Before it sold out to the mainstream."

"Ohhhh," Dahlia said as she understood. "Right. I getcha. And you think this is the way to punch back against corporate?"

"I'm sending them a message."

"...like an actual message? Or just this?"

"This is enough."

"...is it though? I mean first of all, Hot Topic isn't gonna see your graffiti as protest. They'll start selling edgy t-shirts with the design in about a week. And that's IF they see it. Nobody's here to hear your message, certainly not anyone with any kind of power." 

"Says who?" Britta asked. "You talk a big game for a corporate shill."

She laughed again. "A what? Honey, I'm here today as a favor. My specialty is in human rights law. I run a little operation of freelance journalists and activists who protest inequality. And I'm well aware of who you are, Britta Perry. You did one good protest over a decade ago then you go dormant except for a few botched protest attempts that really only made the school newspaper. You have potential and passion. What you lack is focus. Do you really want to hit back against Hot Topic?"

"I do."

"Then I offer my help, if you'll accept it. But for the record, I don't only buy from Hot Topic. I used to when there was more stuff catered to my specific interests, but pop culture has moved on. Now it's just overpriced stolen art from small web artists. I shop online or at thrift stores mostly."

Britta was surprised to find an ally for her cause. This rarely happened. "Where should we start?"


	14. Act III, Scene III

Molly surveyed the Dean's memorial pillow fort.

"Looking good so far," she said as she crawled through. "How's the teacher's lounge going?"

"We did that first," Abed said. "It's done."

"I'm gonna go have a look," she said. She crawled through the many winding passages of the pillow fort until she found her way to the teacher's lounge, which had a maze of pillows and blankets stretching up to the ceiling. She crawled along, checking every bit of it to make sure it matched the blueprint.

"Alright," she muttered to herself. "Looks good." She turned to begin crawling out when she found herself face to face with someone else who was desperately trying to crawl the other way.

"Woah watch it there," Molly said. 

"Sorry, I'll just be on my way," the man said.

"Wait," Molly said. "I know you..." Then it clicked. "You're...you're..."

"Don't be so loud," the man said. "Please."

"GHOST!" she shouted.

...

The others could hear her shout from down the hall and rushed on hands and knees to help her.

"Molly?" Abed asked. "Molly, where are you?" He tried calling her phone. A sudden vibration rang out through the pillow fort.

"Is this her phone?" Troy asked, holding it up.

"Molly never goes anywhere without her phone," Abed said. "I've seen her check her pockets multiple times before leaving a set to make sure she's got it. I think this might be very bad."


	15. Act III, Scene IV

"What do you mean she's missing?" Shirley asked. "Where could she have gone? It's still pouring down rain, so she has to be in here somewhere."

"Abed," Annie said gently. "Can you think of where she might have gone? Abed?"

He wasn't answering, just staring blankly into space. Annie looked helplessly at the others - she'd been prepared to deal with Jeff losing it today, but she hadn't been prepared for Abed.

"Just give us something to go on, Abed," said Frankie. "You know her best."

"I pulled her into this mess," Abed said. "She's just a kid, she wasn't prepared for Greendale. How could she be?"

Annie looked to Troy for help. She knew they were still in some kind of fight, but they needed him to pull Abed together. 

"I've got this," he said. "Give me a moment alone with him."

"I'm heading back to the kitchen," Shirley said. "My casserole should be almost done by now."

Troy knew exactly what type of bit he was walking into when he crouched next to Abed and put his hands comfortingly on his shoulders. "She's gonna be fine," he said once the others were out of earshot. "You'll see. She's got a good head on her shoulders. But you've got to pull it together, man. You're the only one who can solve this. We need you. Molly needs you."

"I don't know if I'm up to it."

"Of course you are-"

"I don't just mean this. I mean the movie."

"The Inspector Spacetime movie?"

"I intentionally sabotaged my own shooting schedule," he admitted. "I knew it was going to rain. I wanted to set production back a little. Just buy me a little time. Then I found out the Dean had died and that gave me a little more time. I wanted something to happen. And I pulled Molly into it. This is why I didn't tell you we were shooting. I'm scared that I'm going to ruin it, and if you knew that I'd created the worst Inspector Spacetime movie then I wouldn't even be able to call it an Alan Smithee project. You'd always know that I let you down."

"You can't let me down, Abed," Troy said. "You're the world's biggest Inspector Spacetime fan. You'd never allow something to be made that was less than perfect."

"But I am," he said. "It's a bad script, Troy. I didn't write it. They said I could make alterations, but I wouldn't even know where to begin. It's a mess. I'm worried it's completely unsalvageable."

Beyond the pillow fort, Leonard was getting impatient.

"Boring," he complained. "You ready?"

"Let's cause problems on purpose," Pierce grinned gleefully. He knocked out one of the supports holding up the fort.

"I've been a bad friend to you," Troy said. "I went out into the world to find out who I am, but I lost the most important part of myself along the way. I lost the part of myself that has always been with you. Time went by, and I let us get out of touch. Those people you saw at my houses - I don't know who they are. I let people just stay there and throw parties. But I never actually go to them. I live out on that boat by myself because I've lost who I am."

"Troy-"

"No, let me finish-"

"Troy, this is important. It looks like the pillow fort is shaking and about to collapse on us."

Troy looked around and realized that Abed was right. The pillows were shaking and falling over like dominos. He remembered that the others must be nearby in one of the other tunnels they'd constructed in this pillow fort and knew he had to warn them. 

"EVERYBODY OUT!" he shouted.

"What?" Annie shouted.

"AVALAAAAANCHE!" Troy screamed.

Troy grabbed hold of Abed and pushed him out of harm's way, out into the hallway. He landed on top of Abed, who stared up at him with that same surprised bewilderment that he'd seen on a million movie girls in the exact same situation. As was their way, they got swept up in the trope, completely unable to resist or even question the chain of movie logic.

"My hero," Abed said.

Who is to say which one of them moved first or if it was simply fate itself that threw them together, but when their lips met they found themselves in the grips of a movie kiss for the ages.

They finally came up for air and Abed looked at Troy with those same inscrutable eyes. Troy was almost begging him to say something.

"Yeah, I got nothing from that," Abed said. "Wanted to see what it would be like, but nothing."

"No me neither," Troy said. He helped Abed to his feet. Abed turned to begin surveying the damage to the pillow fort. Troy spoke again, so softly that Abed couldn't hear him. In the film world, we call this an aside. His voice was filled with a contemplative melancholy that might suggest to the more eagle-eyed viewer that Troy was not being entirely sincere. But to read that into it, you'd need to be well-versed in social cues. Which Abed was not.

"Me neither," Troy repeated to himself.

The damage to the pillow fort was extensive. None of the others had made it out in time so had been buried in the rubble.

"Everyone alright?" Abed asked.

"I need rescue!" Chang insisted in a loud whine. "Someone get me out!"

Jeff pushed aside some pillows and emerged like a Godzilla hatching from an egg. "They're just pillows, Chang, you can do it yourself. It's not that serious."

"Has anyone seen Duncan?" asked Frankie. "I feel like he was here a minute ago but then he suddenly wasn't."

"Well that can't be good," said Jeff.

"Where are the Annies?" asked Troy.

Annie Edison and Annie Kim had gotten buried in the same debris and had ended up in a similar situation to Troy and Abed. Once again, Annie Edison found herself on her back with Annie Kim pressed on top of her. Unlike the situation with Troy and Abed, it was fairly clear who had made the first move. Annie Edison had always been powerless to resist kissing anyone who was within kissing distance, therefore Annie Kim happened to be at the right place at the right time. One minute, Annie was recognizing that Other Annie smelled nice, and the next minute they were locking lips underneath a mountain of pillows. 

"Annie?" Frankie asked.

"Other Annie?" Troy called.

They began clearing the rubble to try to get to them. The Annies heard them coming just in time and stopped kissing before they could be uncovered. But it was too late to stop the scene from looking incredibly suspicious.

"Well well well...What have we here?"

Frankie rolled her eyes. "Looks like we found Duncan."

Ian Duncan had returned just in time to see the two Annies being uncovered. Because of course his timing was impeccable. "I went to check on the food with Shirley," he said. "She says it's ready. She wants to know if we have to wait for the rest of the guests to get here."

At that moment, the overhead lights flickered back on. Abed was suddenly very bored with their problems and decided to get on the case looking for Molly. He looked at her phone. He'd watched her unlock this thing a million times, so he basically had her passcode memorized. He wondered if that was creepy.

"Thank you, Elroy," Frankie said in a low voice. Evidently he'd managed to fix the wiring problem. "I should probably go get him if we're about to eat. He earned it. But you'll have to ask Dahlia if we can go ahead and serve the food. She's the one with the guest list."

"Where is Dahlia anyway?" asked Jeff.

"And come to think of it, where's Britta?" asked Annie.

"Are you guys serious?" Pierce asked. "We're causing problems and you're still not even paying attention!" He kicked a pillow.

Troy noticed the movement. "Guys? Did you just see that?"

"See what?" Jeff asked.

The lights flickered, and that somehow helped the study group see what was right in front of them.

"Oh my god," Annie said. "Pierce?"

"And Leonard?" added Jeff.

"It's about time," Leonard said. "We've been _trying_ to get your attention!"

"They were right," Annie Kim said. "The whole time. There _were_ ghosts."

"Where's Molly?" Jeff asked. "What have you done with her?"

"We didn't do anything with your little friend," Pierce said. "Thanks for replacing me, by the way. Really appreciated that one."

"Can you walk through walls?" Troy asked. 

"Troy's got a point," Annie Kim said. "If you can walk through walls, maybe you can tell us where Molly is."

"That wasn't my point," Troy said. "My point is that that's cool as _hell_."

"We're not helping you," said Pierce. "You replaced me. Solve your own damn problems."

"And solve ours too," Leonard said. "It gets real boring around here. Now that we know you can see us, we're going to be causing way more problems for you."

"That'll teach you," Pierce said.

"But for now, you might wanna get back to that little wake you're throwing," Leonard added.

"Why?" asked Frankie. "What have you done?"

"Nothing," Leonard said.

"If you can stop us in time," Pierce replied.

They both disappeared.

"Well that's _really_ not good," Jeff said.


	16. Act III, Scene V

"Down with Hot Topic! Down with Hot Topic!"

"Good start, Britta," Dahlia said. "But we need to make our message more concise." Dahlia pressed the button on her phone to activate her livestream. "Attention, activist network! Are you tired of fights that actually matter? Want something easy?" She aimed her camera all around. "This school has been taken over by Hot Topic! What business does a mindless corporation have in the business of education? I say it's insidious! I say it's trying to tap in to our intellectual property before it begins! So down with Hot Topic! And down with all establishments that steal from innocent artists then claim to be bastions of individuality! Let _that_ be the hot topic!"

"What are you doing?" Jeff asked as he and the rest of the study group arrived.

"What does it look like?" Britta said. "We're protesting!"

"In the middle of a wake?" he asked.

"Why do you care?" Britta asked. "You keep saying the Dean isn't dead? So who exactly is it harming except the innocent artists who are being ripped off?"

"We don't have time for this now," Jeff said. "Britta, this is important. You remember the ghost you saw before? I believe you. We all just saw the ghosts of Pierce and Leonard. They promised to raise hell down here."

"And Molly's missing," Troy said. "You can't forget that Molly's missing."

"Molly?" Dahlia asked. "What happened?"

"She yelled 'ghost'," Abed explained. "Then when we went to check on her she disappeared." A low rustling noise began emanating from the end of the hallway. "Oh no. The pillow forts have been compromised. Everybody move!"

They ran into the cafeteria and slammed the door, hoping that would be enough to stop whatever avalanche was coming. 

"We've got you all right where we want you now!" Pierce said smugly. "Leonard? Do the honors?"

"With pleasure." Leonard began smashing windows.

"Leonard, you don't have to do this!" Jeff said. "What's the point?"

"The point?" Pierce said. "You think there has to be a point? We're here by popular demand, Winger! Look around you! Can't you see what's happening? Everyone's back exactly where we left off. There's barely even a reason for it! None of us knew the Dean particularly well! It's a thin excuse to come back and everyone knows it! But the real kicker is why Leonard and I are back. I mean we all understand you, Annie, Britta, Troy and Ay-bed. You're fan favorites. They'll even give you a little homoeroticism to spice up the ratings with the kids and if you're lucky it'll be big enough scenes that they won't be cut for international release. But they brought me back. Everyone's getting rebooted these days - isn't that right, Ay-bed? Maybe there's no reason to it, but here we are. A husk of a franchise that was dead before it kicked it the first time, resurrected for a cheap laugh and hopefully a decent box office if it's lucky."

"You know you're in trouble when Pierce is brought back for the nostalgia factor," Leonard said.

"What are we even doing here, guys?" Pierce said. "Who are we?"

"I can't believe I'm about to say this," Abed said. "But I think Pierce is right."

"You can't be serious," Duncan said.

"Does this feel even remotely right?" Abed said. "Something's been off since the beginning. Ghosts? Really? That sounds like a cash grabby studio move. They want to insert a supernatural element in order to get more mainstream people in seats. Our studio has been trying to do the same thing by dumbing down Inspector Spacetime. Whoever's in charge of this narrative didn't understand that we were always more than our wacky misadventures. We were a community." He blinked. "That felt like a name drop moment. I don't know why. Also, is anyone going to mention how they recast Pierce? Or is this a Dead Like Me situation where we all know it's not the same but we're just not supposed to say anything even though it clearly drives the audience crazy?"

"Huh," Jeff said.

"You're _right,"_ Shirley said.

"I didn't even notice it until right now," Annie said. "It's like I _know_ that's supposed to be Pierce...But it...isn't..."

Why this was the last straw for Jeff, nobody would ever know for certain. But the weight of everything suddenly hit him.

"The Dean is dead."

"Jeff?" Annie said, concern evident. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I just...He's really dead."

"We all feel bad about it, Jeff," Britta said. "We all got his invitations to come back for reunion specials. But we never did. There was always some excuse. Then he died. We all regret not being there for him."

"It didn't feel right to me," Jeff said. "That's what this has all been about, this whole time. It didn't feel right. It was a story I wasn't sure how to be in. The Dean is dead. That's impossible. That doesn't happen. I just saw him...But it doesn't feel right, because none of this is how I remember it. It should be all fine because we're all here again, but it's been taken over for product placement and it's not who we are anymore. We should've just moved on and lived with our memories. Our memories of a thing are always better than the thing itself, and we can never get back to them. Life is supposed to feel like it kicked you in the balls. All you can do is grit your teeth through the pain and hope that life will fuck you later."

Abed made a mental note that their rating probably just went up.

"Oh Jeffrey," a voice sniffled. "That was beautiful."

They all turned around. "Dean?" Jeff said. "You're here?"

The Dean was dressed in white robes that were purposely reminiscent of the second coming of Christ. He held out his arms wide. "I have risen. I never left."

Shirley noticed the blatant imagery. "I know he's a ghost and everything, but is anyone gonna say anything about this blasphemy?"

"Oh Shirley," the Dean said. "Shirley, Shirley, Shirley. I was never dead."

She raised her eyebrows. "Come again?"

"I knew it," Jeff said. "I _knew_ it!"

"I faked my own death," he said. "You kept refusing to come to my reunions. So I had to trick you into coming."

"You...you _faked_ your own death?" Annie said.

"It wasn't that hard," the Dean said. "You remember Doppeldeaner? He died recently. Didn't have any family. But we talked about it, and in the event of his death I was allowed to use him to fake mine. So there we go. Easy. I had enough invitations sent out so it was just your study group and planned it on a night when it would storm. Your friend almost caught me before I could make my resurrection."

"Friend?" Troy asked.

Molly stepped out of the shadows. She waved apologetically. "Hi, guys."

"Molly!" Abed said. "You're alright!"

"Yeah, sorry," she said. "This guy found me in the blanket fort. Showed me this evil lair he has under the study room. Pretty cool, actually. I knew if I wanted a proper story arc, I should keep quiet til the right time."

"You did all this?" Shirley said. "Just to get us here?"

"And they say I'm crazy," said Chang.

"Well, I mean, you are," Duncan said.

"Point taken."

"Well someone turn on some _music!"_ the Dean said. "Let's get ready to party! Let's just patch up these windows first, okay."

...

The Dean turned on his dance music and flashing lights and began dancing around. He'd pulled some frozen pizzas from downstairs that Shirley begrudgingly agreed to make, but only because she was hungry. Truth be told, she was angry about this whole thing.

"Just like old times?" Duncan said.

"Not really," said Britta.

Jeff sidled up to Dahlia. "Do you maybe want to get out of here?"

"How do I say this politely...?" Dahlia said. "Nah."

"Okay, hard to get," Jeff said. "Why not?"

"I'll give you a hint." Dahlia stomped over to Britta, took her face in her hands, and kissed her right on the mouth. Britta was surprised for a moment, before finally giving in to it.

Annie watched this from a place on the wall next to Annie Kim. "So," she said. "That thing with us earlier...That was different."

"Different how?" Annie Kim asked.

"I mean, it just felt...different. I've kissed a lot of people and never felt anything like that."

"Oh I get what this is," Annie Kim said. "You'd never kissed a girl before?"

"Yeah. I mean, kinda."

Annie Kim chuckled. "Do you wanna do it again?"

Annie glanced at Dahlia and Britta. "Yeah, let's go."

The Dean sidled up to Jeff. "What's Britta doing kissing my daughter?"

" _Daughter_?" Jeff said. This statement was loud enough to get the two girls to stop kissing.

"Yeah," the Dean said. "She didn't tell you? Deana's my daughter."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Britta said. "Your name is _Deana_?"

"It's my given name," she winced. "You can see why I decided against it. I'm really not that much like him when it comes down to it."

"She says that," said Dean Pelton. "But she's more like me than she thinks. I mean the flare for the dramatic, for one thing. I told her I was faking my death and she was immediately in."

"Are you serious about faking your death?" Duncan said. "Rather a lot of trouble to go to."

"I'll be around," he assured him. "But I am through with this business. Hot Topic just killed my enthusiasm for this work. I did mean it, Jeffrey. I want you to have the school."

"Okay," Frankie said. "Sure. He's never expressed any interest in running a school and isn't at all qualified. But that's fine. Give it to him."

That's when Jeff saw a way out. "Frankie, do you want to be dean?"

"What?"

"I don't want this job, but you'd be good at it. Please, for the love of god, take it from me."

She stared at him for a moment. "Alright. Yeah. I'll do it." She noticed the two groups of lesbians making out in the room. "Is now a good time to finally come out as gay?"

"Oh Frankie," the Dean said, patting her on the shoulder. "We know."

Abed walked up to Molly, who seemed very out of place.

He gave her phone back to her. "Have this back. Full disclosure, I did unlock it to see if I could find a clue to get you back."

"Oh?" she said. "And what did you see?"

"I mean the first stuff was pretty standard personal information," he said. "You never told me you're British. You don't have an accent."

She laughed. "Yeah, we moved here when I was 8." She switched to a stereotypical London accent. "What, you think I'm gonna go around introducing myself as Mo-ee Plo-er all the time? No fanks." She switched back to an American one. "But you see why I might be a little more invested in Inspector Spacetime, right? I loved it as a kid. It was the one comfort thing that crossed the pond with me."

"I saw the other thing too," he admitted.

"Oh? And what did you think of that?"

"I didn't get to read much," he admitted. "But I'd like to read more, if that's alright. Can I ask you something?"

"Go for it."

"You are clearly _very_ invested in Inspector Spacetime. Why haven't you told me even once that this movie is crap?"

"I didn't want to risk my job," she said.

"I can't figure out how to appease the studio and get the money and still make a good movie," he admitted. "I got myself into a hole. But I think you can get me out of it. How long have you been writing Inspector Spacetime fanfiction?"

She smiled. "Since I was 15 years old."

"I'd like you to take over. Write the script for me. Take some of those ideas you have, and turn it into something that matters. You are the demographic we write for, Molly Plotter. So I need you to do this for me. I want to promote you to co-director and give you creative control."

"You're serious?"

"I'll never forgive myself if I make a bad Inspector Spacetime movie. Please, will you help me?"

"I'd be honored," she smiled.

Duncan had been listening in to all of this. "For the record, I called it. It's these ears. They'll always find a fellow Briton." He got distracted by Britta and Dahlia in the corner. "Do you think they-"

"No," Abed said.

"You didn't know what I was going to say," he said indignantly.

"They're not looking for a third," Abed said firmly. "Or someone to watch. Leave them alone. That goes for the Annies too."

"Spoil my fun."

Molly wandered over to Frankie. "Sorry, I hope this isn't too forward-"

"I only just came out a second ago and you're a little young for me," Frankie said.

"I'm actually asexual, so it's not that," Molly said. "Actually, I'm on the autistic spectrum. You might've guessed that Abed is too. Do you mind me asking if you have a family history?"

"Yeah I do, actually. Why do you ask?"

"You might want to look into a diagnosis. We're a pretty cool club once you get to know us. Just something to think about."

She walked away.

"That's the strangest girl..." Frankie said.

Troy made his way over to Abed. "So we're cool now?"

"Yeah," Abed said. "Cool. Cool cool cool." He smiled at his best friend and they did their secret handshake. 

"I've been thinking," Troy said. "Maybe the studio won't let you do the right thing with this movie. So what if I try to buy the rights for you? I have all this extra money, we could start a production company."

"Troy, that would be amazing!" Abed said. "Are you sure that's what you want to do?"

"I'm starting to like the idea of 'executive producer, Troy Barnes'," he admitted.

"Me too," Abed said.

Suddenly the future didn't seem so scary anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be back before Thanksgiving with the credit scene and the after credit scene.


	17. Outro

"Troy and Abed in the morning!"

Troy and Abed grinned and held up their matching mugs, which they could hardly believe were now official merch.

"Technically it's the middle of the afternoon," Troy said. 

"Because we pre-tape each show," Abed added.

"Which you wouldn't have to do if you'd wake up for call," said a voice from off camera.

"Molly!" Abed said. "Come here!"

"I'd really rather not," Molly protested.

"But everyone has to see the woman who made this all possible!" he said. He got up and dragged her into frame. "Wave to the camera."

She glared into the lights and waved awkwardly before shielding her face from the lights. "I'm not really a...camera person."

"Don't be shy," Troy said. "Sit down. Take a load off."

"Erm...Okay?"

"So," Abed said as she sat down. "Tell us a little about how you got to be here."

"I was working for you," she said, as if this were obvious. "As your PA."

"Skip ahead to the part where I offered you a better job."

"Erm...alright? I mean, obviously I was thrilled when Abed said these two were starting a production company. He'd already offered me a writing and directing credit - which was a _lot_ to put on me at my first movie gig - but of course the logistics made me think it wouldn't happen. A female director? On Inspector Spacetime? People would assume I'd Minerva it before it even got through production. By the way, I hate that term. In Minerva's defense, the writing on that season was really lackluster and she wasn't given a whole lot to work with. I actually quite liked her."

Troy laughed in an approximation of a nervous but polite gentleman. "Oh Molly," he cautioned through a smile. "Keep talking like that and they won't even _let_ you do Inspector Spacetime 2."

"I won't apologize," she said. "And I'm writing Minerva into the sequel. You'll all see."

"But what happened after you were offered a writing credit?" Troy prompted.

"Oh. Right. Well, that's when you decided to start the company. Neither of you know anything about logistics, so you offered me a third of the company to partner with you to create-"

Troy and Abed smiled at the camera. "Troy and Abed in Production!"

"We offered to call it 'Troy and Abed in Production with Molly'," said Troy.

"Or Troy and Abed and Molly in Production," added Abed.

"But I flatly said no," explained Molly. "Those are terrible names. I'm happy with a writing credit and creative control."

"And look what you've done with that!" Troy said. "You turned what would've been a terrible movie into a masterpiece. We've rejected numerous offers from Marvel to buy it as a franchise."

"I know you both were really into the idea of Marvel crossovers," said Molly. "But I couldn't allow them to water down and cheapen the experience like they do with all their flavorless unremarkable-"

Troy put a finger to his ear. "Hold that thought. Our first guests are here! Say hello to Britta and Dahlia!"

Dahlia looked basically the same as she ever did, but Britta had added a purple streak in her hair and was wearing chunky glasses. They both waved to the camera as they came on.

"Woah, guys!" Britta said. "I can't believe this is actually a real show! You pulled it off!"

"I could say the same about that hair color!" Troy said. "But I won't, because we used to date, so it would be weird."

"So where have you two been?" Abed asked.

"Well," Britta said, settling between Molly and Dahlia on the couch and clutching Dahlia's hands. "You may have heard about our recent battle against Hot Topic?"

"How's that going for you?" Troy asked.

"It's not," Britta said. "It's basically a lost cause. I mean we're still doing it for the credibility, but truthfully the controversy just drums up more business for them."

"Fighting them is good for sponsorship deals," Dahlia admitted. "But we've been doing more worthwhile work while that's been going on."

"Oh?" Troy asked. "What have you two been up to?"

"Oh you know," Britta said. "Just jetting around the world, protesting human rights-"

Dahlia's eyes widened slightly. "Ah-ah, she means protesting _for_ human rights. You make it sound like we're protesting against them."

"Right, that's what I said," Britta said.

"It's mostly a lot of boring legal stuff," Dahlia said.

"But sometimes you get thrown in a South American prison and get some _real_ contacts-"

"She means imprisoned journalists," Dahlia explained. "Some of which we _have_ managed to get released."

"So what's next on the agenda for you two?" Abed asked.

"Well," Britta said, sharing a sly look with Dahlia.

"Don't tell me..." Troy said. "You two aren't...?"

"Yep," Britta said.

"We're leading a protest against marriage!" Dahlia finished.

"That's _really_ not how I saw that sentence ending," Troy said.

"Well, it's logical when you think about it," Britta said. "I've always said that marriage is an excuse by men to keep women as property."

"And she's right," Dahlia said. "We have this flawed conception that in order to achieve equality with heterosexuals, we must perform their rituals. But what does that achieve? Sharing the same status as people gaming the system for taxes or immigration or pregnancy or money? I'll pass. As long as this is a system that causes young women to be bartered as property-"

"Like they are even in the United States," Britta added. "Teen girls being pressured into marriage by their family is a huge problem here."

"And until people with disabilities have the same rights as able people-"

"They could lose their disability checks if they marry," explained Britta. "And that's not to mention that people with disabilities are often assumed to have no agency over themselves or ability to know what they want."

"And on the flipside of that, of course, there's the fact that the institution of marriage can be used to exploit disabled people by trapping them with bad carers."

"We just decided it was a bad bet for anyone as long as the government regulates and determines what marriage means," Britta said.

"We don't think a government contract should determine who counts as 'immediate family' or who gets to make medical decisions for you."

"Or be a shortcut for entry into the country."

"Which ties into another discussion we're having about opening the borders."

"So..." Troy said. "You're _not_ getting married then?"

Britta glared at him.

"Moving on," Abed said. "I think we have Jeff Winger streaming in from out of state. Molly, can you patch in the feed?"

"Oh right," she said. She jumped off the stage and arranged for the screen behind them to have Jeff's face on it.

"Jeffrey!" Troy said. "So good of you to join us!"

"You've got to be kidding me," Jeff said as he saw the studio audience. "This is actually real this time?"

"He owes me $10 on that bet," Britta said smugly.

"And how are things in Greendale?" Troy asked.

"Oh you know," said a voice from off-camera. "We've _dean_ better days!"

"You can't be here!" Jeff said to the off-camera voice. "We told you, no cameos! It completely messes up the point of being dead!"

"I tried to stop him," said another voice. "But even I couldn't _chang_ his mind."

Troy laughed in that forced way that television presenters do. "Wonderful, wonderful," he said. "Are the Annies with you?"

Abed jumped in to explain. "The Annies couldn't be here today because they're on assignment in a classified location as a joint effort by the FBI and CIA - and I just realized this is an end credit scene and we're out of time-"


	18. After Credit Scene

The cube glowed in the center of the study table where it illuminated the darkened room. The camera panned closer...closer...

The light was flipped on.

"What are you still doing in here?" Abed asked. "The credits rolled. Leave." His eyes fell on the cube. "You don't think this is a real Tesseract, do you?" He picked it up and tossed it in the air, expertly catching it. "It's a replica. What do you think this is, a Marvel movie? This isn't a franchising opportunity, we're done. Finished. We're not setting up a cliffhanger ending or some kind of cinematic crossover universe. It's over. Give it a rest. Haven't you bled us dry enough? What more could you want from us? You've got to let us go, guys. Imagine us as you'd like to remember us - that's what fanfiction is for. But we can't keep living our lives behind this screen. We're a ghost show that you can't keep resurrecting, we've been through this! Don't make us into zombies, guys! Let us rest in peace." He blinked. "You're not going. Why aren't you going? Don't you have anything better to do? I mean I don't because you keep insisting I be here-"

"Abed?" Molly said. "What are you doing?"

"Letting the audience know this was a one-off thing," Abed said. "They shouldn't expect a sequel. Six seasons and a movie, that was always the deal. Anything else is overkill."

"He's right, you know," Molly said. "I mean this one was hard enough to pull off. Did you notice how we had to digitally insert Elroy and Hickey into the final wake scene? Scheduling conflicts. And we had to create a realistic digital replica of Leonard too, like that weird thing they did in Star Wars for Leia. Recasting Pierce was just for fun."

"I don't even know why I agreed to do this movie in the first place," said Shirley as she came on. "Just like in the show, I barely get any good scenes. I guess the money was good, but-"

Jeff entered. "Are you kidding? People are _still_ watching this? Don't you guys have a life?"

"Of course they don't," said Annie as she entered. "People with lives don't wait for the after-credit scene. They just look it up on YouTube later."

Britta entered. "I think the problem is they didn't get the fan service they wanted. They set you up with a minor character and put me with a new person. Is this what you wanted?" She grabbed Annie and kissed her.

"Woah," Annie said. "To think, we could've been doing that for the whole show."

"I'll be saving gifs of that to my Tumblr later," said Professor Duncan.

"Pretend I'm making a Dean pun," said the Dean as he entered. "I'm just here for my close-up."

"I'll end this once and for all," said Chang. "Some things never Chang."

"That barely even made sense in context," said Jeff.

"He's right," said Troy. "That was even more forced than usual."

"Guys, we need to clear off set," said Frankie. "They're about to use it for another Spiderman reboot."

" ANOTHER Spiderman reboot? HOW MANY TIMES MUST WE KILL UNCLE BEN?" Troy screamed.

Chang began attempting to turn off the camera.

"The End," said Abed.


End file.
